


sweetheart, you're stubborn

by voxious



Category: IT (2017), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Blood, First Kiss, M/M, Making Out, Strangers to Lovers, eddie's a little shit, just some good old fashioned, making out in the back of a car, nothing crazy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-02
Updated: 2017-12-02
Packaged: 2019-02-09 12:25:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,289
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12887823
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/voxious/pseuds/voxious
Summary: “You don’t look like a smoker, Mike Hanlon.”Neon lights are deceiving and sticky summer air is hazy, but the voice that cuts through it all belongs to a body named Richie Tozier. Mike thinks— no, he knows.“You know me,” Mike breathes, 70 percent of his bodyweight now rests against a purple brick wall. The other 30 percent remains spry and ready to jump at a moment’s notice (Beverly throwing up again. Eddie, all 120 pounds of fury in him, getting him into another fight). The wall turns green, then melts to blue in succession, along with the reflection in Richie’s glasses. The air turns orange soon after with a flick of a lighter. “I’ll try anything once.”





	sweetheart, you're stubborn

**Author's Note:**

> y’all know the drill. They’re 18. don't yell at me.

“You don’t look like a smoker, Mike Hanlon.” **  
**

Neon lights are deceiving and sticky summer air is hazy, but the voice that cuts through it all belongs to a body named Richie Tozier. Mike thinks— no, he knows.

“You know me,” Mike breathes, 70 percent of his bodyweight now rests against a purple brick wall. The other 30 percent remains spry and ready to jump at a moment’s notice (Beverly throwing up again. Eddie, all 120 pounds of fury in him, getting him into another fight). The wall turns green, then melts to blue in succession, along with the reflection in Richie’s glasses. The air turns orange soon after with a flick of a lighter. “I’ll try anything once.”

Without a word from the boy, Richie’s eyes glow blue again. _It’s the light_ , Mike thinks.  _Not the mischief…Atë, goddess of—_

“Of course I don’t,” Richie replies, his voice finally emulating the cigarette between his lips. Almost grey. Full of leaves. Full of chemicals.  _Nicotine.._

“Oh, ye—“

“Sure I know you’re popular,” Richie starts.

The guy’s infamous for long-winded speeches. Ironic and dry compared to anything anyone else within 20 miles of Derry could whip up.

 _Except for Stan_ , Mike thinks.  _Stan could take on this cryptid._

“I know all the girls absolutely  _fahwn_  over  _Michael Hanlon_ ,” Richie continues, hand gestures all but deterring him from taking a long drag from his cigarette before finishing. Dumb faked accent transforming his voice into anything but quiet. “Along with a few boys, of course.”

Mike notices the hint of tongue that leaves Richie’s lips and he’s stuck on it. He’s stuck for no reason at all.

Before he can focus too hard the color changes again, red now, and smoke leaves Richie’s lips in swirling tendrils of, of,

_Lust?_

“And you’re incredibly smart for a jock, huh.” Richie adjusts his glasses, their color back to blue. “I mean what’s not to like?” Richie smiles, and Mike’s hooked.

Because Richie Tozier is a  _mess._

His hair is wild, wild like he’s lived in a public park all his life. His clothes are torn at the knees and frayed at the elbows and his glasses are  _broken._  They’re taped at the edge of the frames on Mike’s left side and he thinks he could definitely memorize everything about this boy right now.

“I kind of like boys too, you know,” Mike admits, feeling the immediate need to clap both of his (and Richie’s and Bev’s and the random kid next to him’s) hands over his mouth. He doesn’t know why he let his secret slip. One that wasn’t entirely a secret, because most of his friends knew, but not many strangers. He’s afraid he wouldn’t be as popular as people (Richie) say he is if they did. “I mean, I’m sorry I—“

“I knew it,” Richie states with a terrible wink like it’s something he’d been waiting to spring. He stubs the remnants of his cigarette against the green brick. “Everyone’s a little gay behind all the lights Mike Ha—“

“Do you get a kick out of pretending to know me, Tozier?” Mike’s fists clench at the mention of the ‘G’ word. His nostrils flare just the slightest bit and he stands from where they’d moved to seated positions on the blue brick stoop. He doesn’t mean to get angry. Richie has good intentions, although the boy’s never really been able to show them. His bare knee bounces nervously from where he still sits and Mike immediately feels like an asshole, so he sits back down, resting his head in his hands. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to say it like that. Or blow up? Or whatever that was.”

The strangers are silent. For a second.

“I do if you were wondering. Get a kick out of it.” Richie dares, swaying to the side, knocking a shoulder into Mike’s, getting the boy to lift his head and smile, throwing back a warm chuckle. Richie sees this as the moment.

The small space between the boys is red again when Richie asks.

“How drunk do I have to get you to prove it?”

“Prove what?” Mike pretends to wonder. He knows, but the gap is closing and he wants to hear it.

Mike wins.

“Prove you kind of like boys too.”

-

The first time Mike Hanlon  _sees_  Richie Tozier, they’re sweaty, their limbs are indistinguishable, and the only light that bathes them comes from the buzzing street lamps and the moon.

“Take your fucking. Shirt off, Hanlon,” Richie groans through tongues and teeth and  _biting_  pressing of lips. His eyes are screwed as tight as they’ll go and his glasses are discarded somewhere far away and uncared for (they’re in the front seat. He’d discarded them as soon as Mike had grabbed his hips with burning hands and pressed them against the hot metal of his car).

Mike does what he’s told and he’s  _glad_  because it’s  _hot_  and Richie’s hands are cold and roaming. They spread across Mike’s shoulders, over broad plains of muscle. Richie loses whatever mind he had left.

“You’re.  _Jesus_ ,” Richie mumbles behind lips that really never seem to quit moving.

Mike prides himself on hushing the one kid who can’t be silenced. As his reputation portrays.

For the first time in the hour or two Mike has actually spoken to Richie in close proximity Mike notices something incredible. He’s.. _really pretty_.

Even without the colors, the boy paints pictures of his own. Everything about him contrasts the next, pale smatterings of brown freckles, dark hair and darker eyes, skin not as pale but still bright in the summertime.

The sprouting of purple bruises along Richie’s newly exposed collarbone should arouse Mike. It should make him feel like devouring this stranger whole, and it does, but it also warms his heart a little bit. A little bit more.

“Mike,” Something, someone, mumbles. Moans, maybe.

Mike tries to compose a grumble of  _Richie_ , but he can’t because the voice is getting louder and a hand appears against the window and two boys are ripping apart.

“Mike!” The voice yells this time and Mike’s face whips around to the window, hands multitasking underneath seats and fumbling with cotton.

“Eddie?” Mike questions, voice raspier than normal but still good. The boy leans down slightly and Mike notices blood dripping from his nose and into his mouth. He’s crying.

The boy’s voice is still muffled through the thick glass of the car window but it grows loud and Eddie grows hysterical. “Please take me home I don’t have anything to clean up with and the bathrooms just have  _puke everywhere_  and—“

Mike jumps into action like he’d been ready to do all night. Because he cares, and it’s easy to console a worried Eddie over an angry one.

“I’ll see you around, Mike.” Richie smiles, shirt suddenly straight, long legs exiting the car one at a time. “Take care of your friend.”

Mike only nods with his mouth dropped open.

“Hey, Eddie, digging the new look.” Richie fires, starting the jog back up to the house with the flashing porch.

Eddie spares no time rounding the tail end of the car, head tilted up to the sky. “Hey fuck you, Richie.”

Once both friends are in the car, Mike in the driver’s seat and Eddie in the passenger, head still tilted dramatically, fingers squeezing delicately at the broken bridge of his nose, Mike speaks.

“Hey, um—“

“I don’t care if you’re gay Mike,” Eddie sighs, eyes rolling behind closed lids. “Just. Next time, hook up with a boy you didn’t fish out of the trash.”

With a twist of keys and a rev of an engine, they pull away from the curb.

“No promises.”


End file.
